Stepping in and out of Sync

i’ve had many conversations where people whose opinions i respect have contended that mankind was created to be social.

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sometimes, under certain conditions, it can happen that a man falls in love with all aspects of life and existence (his own as well as in the world around him). he becomes incapable of boredom. or it’s more accurate to say that the slightest tinge of boredom reminds him of his curious fascination, and fascination dispels the boredom as instantly and effectively as light does darkness.

armed with this fascination for all aspects of life, a man without boredom may become infinitely patient. he is now an oddity in modern social settings. he loses his hurries and forgets their unpleasantness. he can find himself in what others may consider the most detestably life-wasting situations, whenever that feeling of waiting-for-something-else arises (the queue at the dmv, a horrendous traffic jam, abiding in the lift line) and still enjoy within himself a fascination with the flow and function of life in his body, mind, emotions and energies. he begins to move more deliberately, slowly, taking longer to appreciate a flower, an insect, a painting, a story. he is more compelled to listen to his inner sensations, to be attentive to the world around him, cultivating receptivity in himself. he becomes less talkative (output) and more silent (input). in the process he may run a risk of becoming dull and unnoticeable socially, more solitary, individual. he forgets to move forward in the channels and ruts the normal flow of society has carved, and in doing so begins to alienate himself from the crowd. people get restless and honk at him, get pushy and shove at him, get angry and without understanding judge him eccentric or idiotic; and he has already forgotten about the inner unpleasantness of that hurried feeling, he is too busy savoring life to remember why his meditative rhythm pisses his compatriots off. he is in the minority, and may find that he doesn’t really mind it.

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lately i have spent a lot of time by myself. many hours of driving, some hours of writing, some self-reflecting to align and elucidate my meanings and adventures. spending time alone on the mountain, moving at my own pace. stopping in the thick of trees to hear an elusive silence. evaluating my present situations. no goals, no hurries, no worries. little to no social contact. i begin to experience a different rhythm of thought. it is paradoxical, feeling simultaneously alien to me and yet so much more natural and whole than the partial, herky jerky city rhythms i’ve grown accustomed to over decades of urban life.

my aloneness cultivates this rhythm.

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an aside, for the sake of clarity:

aloneness is to be distinguished from loneliness because they are oft confused but quite different, so i attempt to define both according to their usage herein.

1) aloneness, in its most superficial sense, is the state of being physically outside the range of influence of any other human beings. there are deeper levels of aloneness, which descend into the inner world of being.

for example: you can be alone and talking to yourself, browsing the internet, humming a song in your head, or planning your lunch. you might call this alone-doing. this would constitute one level of aloneness, rather towards the more superficial end of the scale.
towards the other end you might find such aloneness that is more free from language: thoughts, ideas, beliefs, worries, and plans no longer factor into what becomes a state of pure taking in, listening, experiencing.
you might call this alone-experiencing, or in an even purer state, alone-being.
such deep levels of aloneness are in fact quite difficult for a modern city dweller to attain or even understand, nearly impossible to sustain, and may take years of focused practice to get a sense of (speaking from experience).

2) loneliness, on the other hand, is simply a deep desire for companionship.

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back to the rhythm of aloneness: this rhythm is interrupted by more socially acceptable rhythms. the more urban the rhythm, the more out of sync with the natural rhythm of the Terrestrial Intelligence of the planet and its other dwellers. in fact, nature’s creatures do not fall out of step with their habitats unless we have somehow infringed on their normal functions. the infringements are born out of the rhythm of our thoughts, tuned to our social and cultural frequencies, focused on our conveniences and ignorant* of the natural rhythm within all life. this is humanity’s footprint.

humans sync more readily to each other than to other forms of life which they perceive as separate from and alien to themselves, and thus remain deaf to the drum that beats eternally throughout their physical existence.

i pause and feel the rhythm of my heart, and realize i’ve been ignoring its pulse. if it was up to me to maintain the beat, i’d have died of ignorance* long ago.

* – ignorance in the purest sense of the word, that of ignoring something (in these cases, something very vital).